From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Thu Jun 28 2001 - 13:14:43 MDT
Robert J. Bradbury wrote,
> The point is there *is* labeling -- its called "organic". People
> who want foods manufactured using "organic" methods are completely
> free to buy them.
Good.
> You miss the point that the desire to have foods labeled as "GMO"
> isn't motivated by the desire to give the average consumer more
> information
I agree. But the problem isn't that labeling is bad. The problem is that
people are being convinced that GMO is somehow bad. The answer is to
counter-educate the public to think that GMO is good. It is dishonest to
market something to the public while deliberately hiding the fact that it is
GMO because marketers know the public wouldn't accept the product if they
knew the truth. Once you start hiding information, you are playing into the
hands of those who claim there is something wrong with it. We shouldn't
have to hide it.
I, for one, want all ingredients listed on my food. If someone invents
something new, and puts it in my food, I want it listed on the ingredients.
I know that I will make better choices than most people. However, I don't
want my food labels to hide information from me because some idiot down the
street is scared by terms he doesn't understand.
The next step would be to hide those nasty-sounding chemical names because
it scares people. We could just list the good-sounding ingredients, but not
disclose the ones that are scary. This seems like a slippery slope to me.
As long as labeling laws currently require all ingredients to be listed, I
am confused why people want to hide information. Even worse, some people
want to block labeling of foods as GMO or Non-GMO, claiming that it doesn't
matter. Maybe it doesn't matter, but let's not outlaw information. If
someone wants to market Frankenfood-free brands, let them do it.
> Its unsound because biotech is moving in the direction
> of foods that are really scientifically better for you.
> You can either educate the consumer so he can make a "fully informed"
> decision (i.e. public service announcements during prime time TV
> explaining in detail everything you wanted to know about GMO
> from a National Academy of Sciences appointed panel) *or*
> assume that the FDA, EPA and Dept. of Agriculture are doing
> a reasonably good job for keeping the food supply safe so
> there is no real reason to label things as containing GMO.
Or, you could request the information so you could make your own decision.
I don't want anybody else deciding what is good enough for me and what is
harmful. I want full disclosure on product labels, and then I will decide
for myself.
I refer to an earlier labeling issue mentioned in Durk Pearce and Sandy
Shaw's _Life_Extension_ book. The FDA did not allow the use of DMSO on
humans. They therefore argued that impurities that were safe for animals
were OK to include but not mention on the label. The FDA went so far as to
stop the labeling of human-grade DMSO, because they didn't want consumers
making decisions for themselves. This situation with GMO is similar. I
cannot choose for or against GMO if I can't detect if from the labels.
Again, I don't disagree with anything you say. However, I would choose more
information, full disclosure, and customer self-decision-making over
suppressing information, incomplete disclosure and
government-decision-making.
-- Harvey Newstrom <http://HarveyNewstrom.com> <http://Newstaff.com>
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